


Home

by aserene



Series: Expressing the Inexpressible [3]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29033580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aserene/pseuds/aserene
Summary: Letters stamped but never mailed tell a story.
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jenny Shepard
Series: Expressing the Inexpressible [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085183
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Song and Lyrics from “Home” by Michael Buble 
> 
> I never could do this song justice, but I tried. 
> 
> Pulled from the archives, circa 2008

She entered her study searching for a case file she was sure she had just set down. She went over to her desk, the darkened piece of furniture holding many memories for her, not the least of which was the manila envelope that sat at the edge under a stack of bills, notes, and a few other case reports. It caught her eye, and she thought that perhaps she had put the file she searched for in it. She opened it up and emptied the contents on the center of the desk, and froze. It was most definitely not the case file on the murdered Marine. Her black and white face stared up at her from the beauty of the city of lights, nearly eight years ago. She shifted through the other photos, some colored, some not, and found that all were photos she had always wanted to get rid of but could never quite bring herself to do. The couple in the photo appeared foreign to her and yet she knew the two people still existed. 

**_Another summer day_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Has come and gone away_ ** **_  
_ ** **_In Paris and Rome_ ** **_  
_ ** **_But I wanna go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Mmmmmmmm_ **

She sat down to further examine the photos she’d rediscovered and noticed that a few were a tad more recent, not even a year old. She had shorter hair, a much more expensive leather jacket, fancier shoes, and no man by her side. They were news clippings from her conference in Paris, the last time she had been to the city of love. She compared them to the much younger woman in the other picture; there was something missing. A smile perhaps, the sparkle in her eye that made her seem alive, these newspaper clippings showed someone she hadn’t wanted to see. She was lonely; there was no spark, no hint of life. She pushed the older photos away from her and forced herself to study the woman in the newspaper clippings. Hundreds of people surrounded her; she was the center of a crowd, and yet there was no sign of the happiness she would have expected herself to feel, the satisfaction she had convinced herself to feel.  _ This is ridiculous; I’m perfectly happy and content,  _ she thought.  _ They’re just bad photos _ ; she convinced herself. 

**_Maybe surrounded by_ ** **_  
_ ** **_A million people I_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Still feel all alone_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I just wanna go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Oh, I miss you, you know_ **

She had put the photos away and had moved through the empty house up to her room, where she changed her clothes and slid into the oversized bed, snuggling into the soft pillows and curling up. Sleep did not come, unbidden memories of another bed, another country where she’d lay awake staring at the faint shadow of the Eiffel Tower as it peaked through the window. She hadn’t slept well during the conference, even though she’d been in one of the best hotels in Paris. She had told herself it was La Grenouille that kept her awake, the very idea that he could be within her grasp and still so far, and yet she knew that wasn’t the truth. Those four nights she had slept in that hotel bed, memories of another time in Paris had swirled around her. She hadn’t slept a lot then either, but she had been slightly more occupied and always woke feeling more refreshed than she had in the years since. She rested starring at the far wall before finally giving in and opening the drawer on her nightstand. The photos she had hidden away tumbled out on the side as she leaned over them. She spared a glance this time at his face; he had that knowing secret smile she only ever saw when he was now in the company of an Army Colonel, _ Retired Army Colonel _ , she reminded herself. That woman was pretty enough, surprisingly not a brilliant redhead, but she thought that perhaps his taste had changed. Maybe he had finally found what he truly needed, the things she could never have hoped to give. As much as it may have made her jealous to see the looks once directed at her given to another woman, part of her was happy for him. She hadn’t seen him look that way in a long time, he was happy again, and she knew that was what mattered. It was what he deserved after so many years of heartache that she had only contributed to; she only wished she’d been the one to bring him that happiness.

She pushed the photos away again, refusing to see her happy face smiling, and instead reached further back in the drawer. A bundle she had not seen since she had contemplated sending a letter to Mexico appeared in her hands. She carefully undid the golden ribbon that had once held the package to a coat together. Her script adorned each and every unlined page, back and front, the same name at the top of each and every page,  _ Jethro. _ She reread them, already knowing them by heart, and felt a tear slip from her eyes. Each letter was placed in an addressed envelope with a stamp included, and still, none had ever seen the mailbox. As always, the words of another letter filtered through her mind, and the tears she attempted to withhold fell. 

**_And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Each one a line or two_ ** **_  
_ ** **_“I’m fine baby, how are you?”_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough_ ** **_  
_ ** **_My words were cold and flat_ ** **_  
_ ** **_And you deserve more than that_ **

She could remember the day she left in clear and perfect detail. It had been sunny; she’d always thought it was ironic, she’d wanted the weather to reflect her mood, the sky crying just as she had. She had remembered the plane trip home from the conference, Cynthia waiting ever so patiently for her with a happy smile and a joke about her old partner. She had laughed at it as she was supposed to, but her laugh was hollow and flat. She’d hated that plane trip just as much as she’d hated any other to and from that city. She hadn’t cared that the sun was once again shinning. 

**_Another aeroplane_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Another sunny place_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I’m lucky I know_ ** **_  
_ ** **_But I wanna go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Mmmm, I’ve got to go home_ **

She didn’t sleep that night. Instead, she had decided that she needed to do some real work, and she’d be just fine. She’d gone back to her office; her clothes changed, her makeup reapplied, her hair re-brushed, all in all looking as if she’d slept the whole day away. She’d taken the elevator straight up to MTAC and her office, glancing briefly at the floor below her. Her steps had slowed as she’d noticed a single light on the floor. She ignored it, she knew who it belonged to, and she didn’t need to speculate his reasons for being in the office this late or early, depending on how you looked at it. She also didn’t want him to see her, not till she’d had a few cups of coffee and could pretend that she’d slept. He would know; he always did. 

**_Let me go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I’m just too far from where you are_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I wanna come home_ **

The day progressed smoothly, and yet she felt outside it like she was simply watching her body go through the motions. She sat in MTAC, was given command updates, and asked to make life or death decisions, and she didn’t blink. She watched targets be destroyed, listened, and planned maneuvers with all the skills of a general. She tackled the mountain of paperwork on her desk with the enthusiasm of a Mt. Everest climber, and yet she didn’t feel complete. She had the job she had always dreamed of, had excelled at it in many cases, and still, she felt incomplete. Cynthia came in to show her photos from her latest press conference, and again she saw the strong and confidant woman with the happiness of a starved animal. 

Later in the day, she was standing on the catwalk handling five different things when she felt a pair of eyes on her. It was for the briefest of moments, but she glanced over her shoulder slightly and saw him on the stairs; he looked like he had something to tell her but had thought the better of it. She inclined her head slightly in his direction, and his eyes flashed the knowing message with just a touch of something else; she thought it might have been pride. She knew he hated her job, despised every minute that she had forced him into it. She knew it had been the thing to come between them, that had forced them from their happiness and kept them from possibly ever experiencing it again, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t miss it or wonder if he perhaps wanted her to fail. A memory from the night before, a photograph, colored, a couple standing upon a bridge the woman starring at the horizon and the man starring at his companion flooded her, faith was something they had had; she wondered where it went. Words from weeks earlier flooded her mind. 

_ “What happened, Jethro?” _

_“You made a choice.”_ _  
__“I had to do what was best for me, still do.”_

He hadn’t sounded bitter, even though she knew he had every right to be angry with her. He had sounded resigned, something that she saw every so often lurking in his crystal blue eyes. He wasn’t so good at hiding his thoughts as he imagined; she could sneak in and read them every so often. 

**_And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life_ ** **_  
_ ** **_It’s like I just stepped outside_ ** **_  
_ ** **_When everything was going right_ ** **_  
_ ** **_And I know just why you could not_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Come along with me_ ** **_  
_ ** **_'Cause this was not your dream_ ** **_  
_ ** **_But you always believed in me_ **

She finally managed to retreat to the relative safety of her office and opened her briefcase to grab the case report she needed, and was shocked to find the perfectly bundled pile of envelopes.  _ Damnit! _ She quickly re-stuffed them into her case and ignored any possible implications had someone else found them. The manila envelope was with them, along with the case report she needed. She pulled the case report out, but the manila color taunted her with memories. She took the clipping Cynthia had pulled and studied it again. A second one attached that she hadn’t seen, a late publication, using a picture from the Paris conference, as she hadn’t been available for a new one. She was entering a building; her head turned slightly, gazing at what she knew was a bridge that crossed a river. A bridge for lovers, a bridge she had crossed more than one time. She thought she could see something in her eyes, something that had been missing from every other photo from that five-day period. She didn’t want to contemplate what that might be. 

**_Another winter day has come_ ** **_  
_ ** **_And gone away_ ** **_  
_ ** **_In even Paris and Rome_ ** **_  
_ ** **_And I wanna go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Let me go home_ **

She glanced at the newspaper clipping again. There were people all around her, and yet the photographer had managed to capture just her, the rest were fuzzed out as if they didn’t exist at all. In her own world, she appeared alone, by her own choice, she admitted, but alone nonetheless. She flipped through the collection of clippings again; in one, she was on the phone, and she knew who she’d been on the phone with, and so ignored the tug at her mind that said she looked younger in that photo, not necessarily burdened by all that she carried. She’d hated that conference, she decided. She hadn’t known what she was thinking, that going to Paris could ever be the same again. She had thought it was the city that had given her the happiness; she’d never been so wrong. 

**_And I’m surrounded by_ ** **_  
_ ** **_A million people I_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Still feel all alone_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Oh, let me go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Oh, I miss you, you know_ **

The sun had long set as she shifted for the umpteenth time in her chair. She swirled her wrist to ease the cramp that had developed before returning her pen to the paper to sign yet another report. She could feel her eyes closing slightly and knew she would have to stop for coffee if she even considered driving herself home. Her door opened slowly, and she looked up as a silver-haired head peeked in.

“You’re still here?” He asked, sounding somewhat confused.

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t you have gone home by now?”

“In a bit,” she replied, flipping to another case report, the pile that was once Mt. Everest now only resembled Cadillac Mt. 

“Come on, Jen, you’ve been here long enough,” he coaxed, grabbing her briefcase; she felt her heart clench before remembering that she had closed it and there was no way he could see inside unless _ he developed X-Ray vision _ , which given her subject she wouldn’t put past him. 

“I’ll go home soon, I’ve just got…” she yawned, she’d tried to hide it, but it slipped out. He had an oddly amused smile. 

“It’ll be here in the morning,” He reminded.

“That’s the whole point of doing it now,” she countered. 

“Jen, you’re exhausted. When was the last time you actually slept?” He inquired, sounding concerned. She shrugged her shoulders. “Jenny…”

“Oh, all right, sheesh, at least I can work from home,” she whined. She knew that with him, it was just easier to cave and do what she pleased later. She got up, grabbing her coat and snatching her briefcase back from him. He walked her down to the elevator.

“You going to be okay to drive?”

“Fine, Jethro,” she answered. 

“Let me take you home?” He asked hesitantly. She really wasn’t in the mood to drive, her eyelids feeling like lead weights. She nodded, and he led her to the car. She glanced briefly over her shoulder; somehow, NCIS always looked official even in the middle of the night. 

**_Let me go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I’ve had my run_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Baby, I’m done_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I gotta go home_ **

She had leaned her head against the window as he’d driven through the darkened streets of DC out into the suburbs toward her elegant neighborhood. She simply watched the sights as they went flashing by in her vision. He hadn’t said anything, but she could feel him every so often looking over at her. This wasn’t unusual for them; they often spent time together without speaking. It was however the first time she’d felt so at ease with his silence. The vision of a younger woman leaning over the console in the car to kiss her lover flashed before her eyes, and she blinked them to banish the image at least until she could enjoy it in solitude. A few minutes later, she felt him nudge her arm slightly.

“Jen, wake up,” he called softly. She swatted his hand away,  _ five more minutes _ . “Jenny, Jen, you’re home.” She moved her head off the window and blinked her eyes open, and she hadn’t meant to fall asleep. 

“Thank you for the ride, Jethro,” she said tiredly. The green numbers on the dashboard caught her eye; she could’ve sworn it was only eleven, not one. “You want a cup of coffee or something?”

“It’s alright Jen; I think you’re falling asleep on your feet.”

“Hm-hm,” she responded, her brain still teetering on the edge of sleep. “You could stay?” Well, that woke her up. “Uh…I mean, it’s one, and I have a spare bedroom,” she quickly added on. He was tired, but he was not going to admit it to her, and he certainly didn’t need the idea of her asleep to conjure up thoughts and memories. 

“Come on, Jen, I’ll walk you to the door,” he replied, getting out of the car. He came around and offered her a hand up. She’d gotten out on her own but allowed him to grab her briefcase and walk her to the door. He’d done that numerous times before, though eight years ago the goodbyes usually lasted till good morning. Now _ is not that time for that _ , she scolded herself. He let her open the door to the house and walked her over the threshold. 

“You could stay,” she repeated. “It seems a little ridiculous for you to drive another half hour.” 

“Jen…”

“Well, whatever you want, good night Jethro. Thank you for the ride,” she said. “Coffee’s over the stove,” she called, walking up the stairs. She appeared minutes later, came down the stairs, took the briefcase out of his hands, and went back upstairs without a word. She was pretty sure he’d leave, she’d given him two offers, and he’d turn her down.  _ Not so much turned down as warned against,  _ she reminded herself. She threw her high heels in the closet, the jacket following missing the laundry by a foot. She was soon clad in cotton and curled up in her bed, and looked at her briefcase sitting right next to her bed. 

“Hey Jen,” she heard from the stairs.  _ Sleep foiled again _ , she complained internally, slipping out of the covers and grabbing her long fluffy robe. She appeared at the top of the stairs to find him looking at the manila envelope she’d tossed on the table on her way in.  _ Shit.  _

“What?”

“This a picture from that conference?” He held up the one solely focused on her while she was focused elsewhere. 

“Uh-huh,” she sighed tiredly. 

“You look a little distracted,” he said by way of inquiring what had grasped her attention. She yawned again.

“Place was across from the Bridge,” she didn’t even have to specify which bridge. Should it be bad that she didn’t have to specify which bridge that he would just know instantly?

“Any different?”

“Nope,” she replied, covering a yawn. 

“Walk over it?” 

“No…if you’re not staying, lock the door on the way out,” she said, moving back down the hallway.

“And if I’m staying?”

“Good night Jethro,” she called again, this time from her doorway. 

“Hey, Jen…”

“Jethro, you dragged me out of my office to get sleep, and now you won’t let me go to sleep!” She snapped. “Oh, that…”  _ Didn’t come outright. _

“You know someone in Mexico?” She came back to the edge of the stairwell and spotted an un-mailed letter.  _ This cannot be happening. _ She came down the stairs and held out her hand for the letter. “Who’s it for?”

“No one.”

“Uh-huh, you’re lying.”

“Jethro, give me the damn letter.” He was wise enough not to cross swords with a tired Jennifer Shepard. She took the envelope and peeked inside,  _ empty. Empty? But the letter… _ She remembered leaving it on her bed that morning; Naomi would know not to touch it. “Good night Jethro.”

She again moved back up the stairs and heard him following slowly.  _ Guess he’s staying. _ She slipped into her bedroom, closing the door till there was just barely a crack, and she snuck a peek through it. He entered the guest bedroom, and she knew he’d be asleep in minutes. He had to have been just as exhausted as she was if he was willingly staying at her house. She closed the door to her bedroom and slid back into bed, the photos of the past going back into the side drawer, the bundle of letters going to her nightstand. She’d deal with it in the morning. She shifted to her back and lay staring at the pale ceiling. She really should paint it with all the time she’d spent staring at it lately, or decorate it or something. Surprisingly though, she felt her thoughts fading and smiled faintly at the memory of Jethro trudging up her staircase. 

**_Let me go home_ ** **_  
_ ** **_It will all be all right_ **

“Jen! Jenny!” In a panic, her name was being called, someone was desperate for her attention, but she still kept running. Why? _ What am I running from? _ She felt two hands shaking her slightly. “Jen, wake up!”

She came to at this, sat up gasping for breath. She knew she was panicked. It felt like the same high she had when she was shot at the last time,  _ not pleasant to come down from _ , she thought momentarily. It felt difficult to get air into her lungs, and she briefly noticed the presence beside her. She couldn’t remember the darkness from her nightmare, she couldn’t remember what had chased her, but it hadn’t been pleasant. She knew herself well enough to know she wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight. 

“Jen,” the voice cut in over her adrenaline-rushed thoughts, and her first thought was how they had ended up in bed together. The memories from earlier finally started to trickle in, and she relaxed slightly. “Jen…you okay?”

“Fine, fine, sorry Jethro. I…” She paused shaking her head. 

“You had a nightmare,” he finished.

“Something like that,” she agreed glancing at him briefly. He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his hand still holding her arm comfortingly. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t remember it,” she informed. “Just a lot of darkness.” He focused his intense stare on her and she thought it might be to look for her tell but she knew she wasn’t lying. She rubbed her eyes irritated at her sleep again being disturbed. “What time is it?” Maybe it was late enough to actually considering getting up and dressed again.

“A little after two,” he said glancing at her digital alarm clock. 

“That’s it?” She questioned. 

“You’re not sleeping much these days are you?” He inferred. 

“Have a lot on my mind,” she mumbled in response. She turned her head to meet his eyes in the darkness she could still see the piercing blue color she loved so much. “You should go back to sleep, I’ll be fine.”

“You want something to drink? Tea? Water?” he inquired. She smiled faintly. “I could get it for you…”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “Can I get up now?” He was seated on her covers, basically holding her in. He got up and she slid out, ignoring the fact that he didn’t look away right away. She didn’t think cotton pajamas were all the attractive but apparently, he disagreed, or at least his eyes disagreed. He watched her disappear into the bathroom and heard her run the sink. 

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it, you were screaming.”

“I don’t remember it,” she replied again. “Probably a good thing, I live alone,” he heard the faint mutter. Personally, he disagreed, he hated the thought of her being alone. He glanced around her room, had she redecorated since the last time he’d been there? He wasn’t sure, he noticed the stack of envelopes on her nightstand and glanced at them in the faint light. They hadn’t been mailed, and he was sure the stamps were too old to make them current. He glanced at the return address to see who they were from  _ Cairo, Egypt _ .  _ Must be a letter she never mailed, then why keep it?  _ He glanced at the address it was supposed to have been sent to, he knew that address, _ why would she have been sending me a letter from Cairo? _ It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him and he resisted reading the words inside. Instead, he picked up the bundle and thumbed through the others. They were all from her, from various countries and all were addressed to his house in Washington. He thought about the envelope he’d found downstairs addressed to Mexico, he hadn’t checked the address, just the city, and country, but he was willing to bet it was Franks placed. So question one, why did she have all these letters she had obviously never mailed? Question two, why had she even written them? And finally question three, what did they say?

He placed the bundle back, exactly as he’d found it and glanced over the bed, it looked barely slept in. He could still hear the water running from the sink and heard a glass being filled. He glanced around her room again, his eyes falling to the end of the bed where a piece of paper rested ever so innocently. He glanced behind him,  _ still in the bathroom _ . He picked up the piece of unlined paper with her familiar script and read his name at the top. The date placed it somewhere in the summer he’d been ‘retired’ and so he assumed this was the letter that never made it to Mexico. It was hesitant initially, a little bit teasing, with a comment about emails and such, before getting a bit deeper. She’d written about his team, how they were coping, she’d written about the weather and commented that it must be so much nicer there, and the last was a plea.  _ Come home soon Jethro, we _ …the we was scratched out.  _ I miss you, Love, Jen. _

“Jethro you should really just go back to sleep, I’m…” she stopped mid-sentence as she came out of the bathroom and froze. She glanced from her nightstand to the piece of paper in his hand, completely bypassing his own gaze. “I’m fine.” 

So she was going to ignore the fact that he’d most likely read something she had never intended for him to see. That wasn’t like her at all, _ but perhaps she doesn’t know it’s a letter. _ That made even less sense though, she was incredibly observant. 

“Jen.”  
“Jethro, go back to sleep,” she said her voice sounding tired; she sat down on the edge of her bed apparently waiting for him to leave. Instead, he sat down next to her and handed her the letter. She simply took it and tossed it in the drawer. 

“You wrote love.”

“Did I?” She inquired. Clearly, he was not going to let this one go. “Would you like to read them all to use them against me or just to have some amusement?” He’d forgotten that she could become irritated on lack of sleep. 

“Don’t fall back asleep on me,” he warned getting up and going back into the hall. She heard him go into the guest bedroom and he reappeared a minute later with an envelope of his own. “I didn’t think Abby gave this to you.”  
“What is it?”

“A letter.”

“Addressed to me?”

“Abby was supposed to track you down and give it to you if anything happened, I think she was a little distracted during the explosion and since you were right there, I guess she figured that I wouldn’t want you to read it unless I was actually gone,” he explained. It wasn’t uncommon for agents to write a letter to their friends and partners in the case of an emergency. She opened the un-mailed letter and pulled out the unlined paper. She read the date.

“This is the night after Kate died,” she said. He nodded and she read the letter, an apology, the pain he experienced from losing an agent, he asked her what she’d been doing, if she was happy, how her team was doing. He wrote of his new team, how she would have loved to meet Kate. Then there was a plea, the same she had used,  _ I know why you couldn’t come with me then, but when you’re ready come home Jen, I miss you.  _

“There are events which make us rethink everything we’ve done. I thought maybe if I’d done things differently Kate would still be alive, or perhaps it might have been worse and it would have been you there instead of Kate. I hated that thought, but I…I looked up your status that night just to make sure. It didn’t say much, but then again the next day you became Director.” 

“I would have much rather waited until you needed something, but Morrow thought I could talk some sense into you. I tried to get just a normal meeting, but he insisted on the cloak and dagger.”

“You hadn’t changed at least in appearance.”

“But I wasn’t the Jenny you remembered.” 

“I didn’t think so at first,” he agreed.

“What changed your mind?”

“You didn’t file the retirement papers, although there was one time…”

“When?”

“When Ziva and Tony were undercover, Positano ring a bell.” She smirked, that conversation had been one of her more pleasant memories. 

_ “Yeah well you never could pace yourself very well.” She’d taken off her glasses in mild surprise. She had no illusions of what he was thinking about. _

_ “I have one word for you, Jethro.” _

_ “Hm?” _

_ “Positano.” _

_ “Oh come on, that was a week after I took a bullet,” he protested. _

_ “Uh-huh,” she’d agreed with mild sarcasm.  _

They were both silently lost in their thoughts. The multiple times he’d brought her dinner, the few times he’d given her advice, they were all reminders of how he had been with her. The fights were also reminders; grant it when they’d been partners they made up, but as Director and Agent the fights tended to linger. They would go home to their lonely houses and she more often than not tended to break a coffee mug or two. 

“That seems like such a long time ago,” she sighed. She didn’t feel like that woman either, all of these memories seemed like they belonged to someone else. 

“I suppose,” he agreed. She glanced over at him, his eyes focused on her carpeting. She shifted her gaze to the letters on her nightstand to the bare spot on the top next to the lamp, which had once held a photo of them. The letter in her hand was three years old and yet he was sitting beside her now. 

“You think it’s too late?” She asked hesitantly. 

“Too late for what?” 

“I spent five days in Paris, and from the moment I got there, all I wanted to do was leave, all I wanted to do was come home, and then I got back and realized I wasn’t home either. This house used to be my home, it used to have such memories, now I’d rather spend my nights in the office,” she explained. “I wonder if it’s too late to ever find a way back home.” 

“It’s never too late,” he assured. 

“I thought that once,” she replied. “Then it seemed everything had changed again.” He considered that she might be thinking of Hollis, and was surprised at how accepting she was. It would have been good to know, but he had long since concluded that while he and Hollis might have been well-matched and he had cared for her it wasn’t going to be enough to make a commitment that she deserved. Hollis had come close to Jen, very close, but it wasn’t fair to compare one woman to another, she deserved unconditional love, something he wasn’t sure he could give any more since his heart hadn’t been his for a long time. 

“Nothing’s changed, Jen.”

“I…” She didn’t know what to say. He put his hand on top of the one resting on her thigh and squeezed it lightly. 

“Come home, Jen.” 

“I can’t, not until you decided to,” she replied honestly. 

“I’m here aren’t I?” he responded with a gentle grin. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear and followed the curve of her chin with his finger. “Come home, Jen.” 

He turned her head toward his and placed a light kiss on her cheek. He pulled back to meet her sparkling green eyes and he watched the years fade from her as her smile brightened. She reached her hands up and pulled him into a deeper kiss. He wasn’t surprised that her kisses made him feel as giddy as a teenager, that all the problems in the world seemed to have a solution as long as she kept kissing him. He wasn’t at all surprised by that, nor was she shocked, as her heart accelerated to pace it hadn’t been to in a while. That her worries were non-existent as he tightened his hold on her and ran his fingers through her hair. The kiss turned into light butterfly touches of lips brushing lips and noses rubbing affectionately. Her fingers lightly ran over his face outlining the faint smile he was giving her. 

“Hey,” he whispered. “Welcome home.” She giggled at that, a sound he hadn’t heard in years and a sound he decided was among his favorite sounds. 

“It’s good to be home,” she replied just as quietly. Her arms shifted to around his neck, her hand lightly stroking his neck. “Stay?”

“Don’t hog the sheets,” he warned. She placed her letter on the nightstand and he lay down beside her, wrapping his arms around her. She turned her head to catch a faint good night kiss that foreshadowed more kisses and all sorts of things they were simply too tired to even attempt. Both were completely oblivious to the sun peeking through the curtains. She switched off her alarm and he shut off both their phones. 

“Isn’t that breaking rule number three?” 

“They’ll think it’s a test,” he assured wrapping his arms around her. He’d missed this, the way her curves fit against him, the tiny little blip in her breathing before it would begin to even out as she fell asleep. The little smile that always stayed on her lips as she dreamed peacefully. 

“It’s good to be home,” she sighed snuggling into his arms. She felt him nod his head in agreement before he let out a small yawn the only sign he was about to fall asleep. She pressed a kiss to his neck before resettling her head, she didn’t have to look to know he had a grin as his mind let sleep take him over. She briefly wondered if she looked like any of the women in the photos she had stashed in her drawer. She certainly hoped so.  _ Finally Home _ …

**_I’ll be home tonight_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I’m coming back home_ **

**-END-**

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 of Virtual Learning (I really am working on Bella Noche)


End file.
